Thursday, August 18, 2011

The 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is quickly approaching and it's been nearly a decade since the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was created in response to the attacks. As somebody who started in the beginning, it is incredible to look back and see how far we've come and how much more secure aviation is today.

The one year anniversary of 9/11 was my first day with TSA at the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG). I joined TSA for the same reason many of my colleagues did: I was appalled by the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and wanted to help in any way I could. We’ve had plenty of questions over the past ten years, but one of the most common questions we hear is, “How has TSA made travel safer?”

Well, here are just a few of the many steps we’ve taken, including those we have taken to address specific 9/11 Commission recommendations over the past ten years:

100% Screening – Through Secure Flight, 100% of passengers flying to, from, and within the U.S. are prescreened against government watchlists. TSA screens 100 percent of checked baggage for dangerous items including explosives, and 100% of all air cargo transported on passenger aircraft that depart U.S. airports is screened. a-e-i-o-u .

Professionalized Workforce – The Transportation Security Officers (TSO) working at 450 airports today are hired through a rigorous vetting process and extensive training that did not exist for the contract personnel who worked the security checkpoints on 9/11. TSOs have an average of 3.5 years of experience on the job, compared with the average of 3 months of experience for screeners prior to 9/11. Prior to 9/11, turnover in the industry was over 125 percent – today, TSA’s turnover rate is 6.4 percent.

Threats to airline safety are constantly evolving and TSA must evolve with them. We deploy an array of unpredictable and visible deterrents, and use a layered security approach to keep the traveling public safe.

If you’d like to comment on an unrelated topic you can do so in our Off Topic Comments post. You can also view our blog post archives or search our blog to find a related topic to comment in. If you have a travel related issue or question that needs an immediate answer, you can contact a Customer Support Manager at the airport you traveled, or will be traveling through by using Talk to TSA.

All the TSA really needed to stop the TSA were the first and last items on your list. Hardened cockpit doors will stop hijackings so then all you have to worry about is explosives, and inter-agency data sharing isn't an accomplishment, it's something all the federal agencies should have been doing in the first place.

Air marshals and extra screening are ridiculously inefficient, unnecessary, and a waste of the taxpayer's money. Although air marshals can be helpful, the increased alertness of cabin crews and passengers, along with the aforementioned doors, makes a hijacking nearly impossible. Since hijacking isn't possible screening should consist using dogs and the existing high speed, high accuracy testing machinery that exists for explosive detection.

It is a hard fact that the TSA can only make us safer by the amount that we were in danger before. How many lives per year will be lost as a result of terrorist actions on an airplane if the TSA were to go away?

Air travel has been the safest form of travel since before the TSA was created, so their improvement to safety seems rather minor.

A side effect of the implementation of whole body imaging and enhanced pat down is that people have moved away from flying. They use the alternative modes of transportation which are statistically more dangerous. This means that the TSA's policies actually increase the number of deaths and injuries. Of course, these deaths and injuries are attributed to bad luck or directly to the people injured. After all, it is your fault that you crashed your car.

The examples you cite to indicate how the TSA has made us safer is all circumstantial, as none of these items have been effective in stopping a terrorist attack. I am sure you will say that there have not been any attempts because yur methods are preventative, but I will contend that there were no attacks because there are not that many people interested in commiting a terrorist act on an airplane.

You are too kind to your beloved TSA organization...10 years after 9/11 many American travelers such as myself see a disgraced TSA organization that is not to be trusted with personal privacy or private property. Congrats on the outstanding job!

100% of people who purchase a ticket are compared against the watch lists. That does not mean 100% of passengers are screened. As has been pointed out here many times (and demonstrated), it's trivial to buy a ticket under one identification (which will pass screening) and then print a boarding pass with your real name (in order to get through the checkpoint). If you really wanted to build a system that checked the identities of the passengers against the watch lists, you wouldn't design it the way it has been designed.

Why are you calling it an anniversary like it's something to celebrate? Shouldn't we call it something more somber, like a 10th year memorial? I don't know about you, but "anniversary" sounds too happy to me.

I'm less interested in the theatrics you've listed and more interested in metrics and results. How many times have Federal Air Marshals been needed in flight and for what reasons? How many people have been arrested and convicted thanks to the watchlists? How many people were incorrectly matched to the watchlist? How many security breeches have occurred despite all of these advances? How many false negatives do these ATRs have?

I don't want to hear of that "sensitive security information" crap either. If your job is to protect me, the flying public, and you can't prove to me you are actually doing it, you should be fired.

How come you have only discussed the aviation sector? Isn't TSA tasked with all sectors of transportation, like mass transit and buses too? What percentage of passengers and cargo are you screening there?

Hopefully for the anniversary they will let half of the tsa go. With the government in such financial ruin seems pointless to have a least tripled the tsa man power and bought useless equipment to boot. Someday the government will have to be financially responsible when that happens bye bye tsa HAPPY ANNIVERSARY.

Hardened Cockpit Doors: Wasn't that mandated by the FAA _before_ the TSA even existed?

100% Screening: Only if the equipment actually works; if the operators aren't asleep, playing video games on duty, flirting with each other; if the TSOs are trained properly in how to use the equipment properly.

Professionalized Workforce: They may be professionalized ("the state of having a profession") but they may or may not be professional. Reno's TSO's are professional. ORD's domestics are professionalized (excluding the two gents there who actually know what they are doing. They're professional.)

New Technology: And like any other new technology, most is not proven to function safely.

In your post, you provide a link to http://www.tsa.gov/approach/tech/bls.shtm. If you have, and have deployed these BLS, why haven't they been mentioned in this blog? And if you have these detectors, why is 3.4-1-1 still in effect?

In April 2002, 9 months after 9/11, I could travel with food which is safe for me to eat. I cannot buy food at any airport because it all has junk in it that can land me in the hospital.

The TSOs were polite and helpful in 2002.

In 2007, the last time I flew, the TSOs were rude, and ignored my request to change their gloves. They slapped my hands when I reached to prevent them from handling my food with dirty gloves. Even the TSA is subject to Health Board regulations.

I cannot fly because the TSA thinks only diabetics need to carry safe fruit juices. The TSA will not answer my questions about specific foods which I used to carry. The TSA has told me not to bother getting a letter from my doctor, as "Anyone could forge one of those, so we don't accept them."

So, yes, "Security" has come a long way in the last ten years. From flying with safe food and encountering polite TSOs to not being able to fly at all because I cannot count on not having my food confiscated by rude TSOs.

We were promised 3.4-1-1 would go away by 2009. It hasn't. So, why are you bragging about your BLS when it isn't available?

Blogger Bob wrote that today the TSOs are " hired through a rigorous vetting process and extensive training" and that the workforce is professionalized.

I don't want to rain on your parade, and it's normal and understandable that any large organization will have some bad apples.

But given the stories about screeners in the news over the past year - such as stories about TSOs stealing items and harassing coworkers - and the repeated instances where TSOs have to be retrained for failure to follow procedures and making it up as they go along - think breast milk and photographers, I'd hardly say that you have a professionalized workforce.

You may get there someday, but you're not there today.

I know there's plenty of good, honest TSOs, who day in and day out do their best, so this isn't meant as a dig to them. They are the ones hurt most by their less-than-professional colleagues.

So instead of platitudes about its own workforce, maybe the TSA should focus on finding those good TSOs and promoting them and getting rid of the bad apples. Then the public can be the one to praise the TSA and the TSOs it employs.

JustSayin said:"TSA...thank you for making our country safer. Without the TSA and its policies, there may have been another 9/11.

God Bless."

Once again, JustSayin, I have to congratulate you on your strong condemnation of TSA abuses. Pretty soon, you'll be testifying in front of Congress on how the TSA is denying Americans their civil rights.

You've documented process, not results. That is, you talk about the steps you have taken but not the effect that they have.

What percentage of weapons in carry-on baggage does the "professionalized" workforce find? What was the percentage pre-TSA? How about bombs in carry-on or checked luggage?

How many terrorists have been caught by the TSA?

I feel no safer flying than I did pre-9/11. There are still far too many holes in the system. However, pre-9/11 the security screening was not particularly annoying to me. Now, we have annoying screening and still no real security.

Im curious as to why people see hardened cockpit doors as the only success. So if someone tries to hijack a plane and kills 1 person in the attempt, isnt that a failure? Because in 9/11 planes were used to destroy the twin towers so now Americans think that if no buildings go down that this is good? Its a success that there havent been any attempted hijackings since tsa started NOT that there arent planes failing out of the sky. Any human life that is lost because of an attempted hijacking is a lose. Just because passengers will jump on the person doesnt mean that the tsa should go away. Lets be serious. The last attempt, the underwear bomber was attempting to blow up the plane to use the hull as a way to spread destruction on the ground, not to prove a point and bring down a symbol of the free market and capitalism. The fact that there havent been any people killed on an aircraft due to a terrorist is a win for the tsa, they dont have to stop 'planes from falling out of the sky" to show that they are doing a good job. Stop being over dramatic!

I cant wait for the new liquid screening machines so that everyone can bring their large liquids again! Of course this means that they will all need to be screened and that will make the lines longer and longer and slower and slower. Be careful for what you wish for......

This article is nothing but a "I'm the TSA, please like me" attempt. Measure your accomplishments over the past 10 years in how many terrorists the TSA have intercepted and stopped. Not by listing the security theater that you have built over the last 10 years and put in place with taxpayers money. Facts are there WERE attempted terrorists acts over the last 10 years, and the facts are your security theater of --In flight security --100% screening --Professionalized workforce --New technology --Information sharing/detectiondid not deter ANY of those acts. Instead, each one of the attempted terrorist acts were unsuccessful because it was stopped by something else--the very tax paying passengers that you harrass and violate every day.

Bob, the reason there haven't been attacks on air travel is that terrorists have chosen not to make any attacks. The September 11 attacks were carried out to cause the United States to react in a way that would damage the United States, and they succeeded. The TSA couldn't have been any more damaging to the United States than if it were run by al Qaeda. Its employees, from the director to the screening clerks, all care about the organization rather than the safety of the traveling public. Nothing they do is directed toward providing security; it's all directed toward pretending to be doing something. Now all a terrorist group has to do is whisper about some attempt they might make to cause an additional waste of money and burden on the traveling public. There was talk about a plot involving liquids, now all the screening clerks direct their attention toward keeping people from bringing bottles of water.

All the TSA has done has been to cause delay and logjams at checkpoints. Anybody who wants to can avoid the pornoscanners; I know how to do it, terrorists certainly do. The pornoscanners, by slowing down the line, create a concentrated soft target. Anybody who wants to carry out an attack just has to come up with a couple of AK's and spray the line, which (because of the delay caused by the pornoscanners and the incompetence and lackadaisical attitude of the screening clerks running them) contains 10s or hundreds of people. I dropped off a friend at LAX once, they checked her in, and then made her go OUTSIDE to join a line with hundreds of people giving their baggage to the screening clerks. Terrorists could have killed those people without even getting out of their car.

The reason they don't do this is that they don't want to do anything to cause the government to get rid of the pornoscanners and the general attitude that TSA should keep adding to their fake security. They know that attitude does more to harm America than any hijacking or attack could possibly do.

You always had 100% screening, even before the TSA. What you have now is that some passengers are sexually molested.

You don't have a professional workforce. The complaints about the behavior of your agents are increasing both in number and severity.

Your new technology is one of the biggest complaints people have against your agency. One version violates the constitution, the other gives you cancer at the same time. It even gives cancer to your agents.

And every time you've implemented secure flight it failed.

Good grief, Bob. Are you basically giving up on trying to convince people with these posts?

"Not a single one, Bob. Give the facts. The TSA accomplished nothing."

Unless I'm missing something, the attempted terrorist attacks (shoe bomber/liquid bomer/underwear bomber) all came from overseas where TSA doesn't screen (not counting the Russian women who brought down 2 planes). So on US planes, I'm not aware of any attempted attacks, just the ones that originated from overseas. Does that mean the treat is not within our birders, but from overseas?

Anonymous said... Unless I'm missing something, the attempted terrorist attacks (shoe bomber/liquid bomer/underwear bomber) all came from overseas where TSA doesn't screen (not counting the Russian women who brought down 2 planes). So on US planes, I'm not aware of any attempted attacks, just the ones that originated from overseas. Does that mean the treat is not within our birders, but from overseas?

This has been covered many times before in this blog. Any plane coming into the US must be screened to TSA standards. It doesn't make any difference where the flight comes from, they are all screened the same way.

Does that mean the treat is not within our birders, but from overseas?

--

It has always come from overseas. After private airport security started up in the late 60s/early 70s, the only incident of note involving the death of passengers (involving planes taking off from US airports) due to hijacking was Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 -- and considering the reluctance of the TSA to screen airline employees, that one could happen again today.

We haven't been made any safer, Bob. You know that. I realize what you have to say for propaganda - er, PR purposes, but you know it's true.

A great american once said that those who give up liberty for security deserve neither. Those words have never been more true today! i just have a hard time believing that TSA has single handedly prevented another 9/11 from happeneing. Guess what? How many terrorist attacks where there on american soil? 2-3 in the 200 years? no place is a a fortress and taking my kids water is keeping me any safer, im just saying.

Anonymous said, "Does that mean the treat is not within our birders, but from overseas?"

If the shoe bomber, underwear bomber, etc were successful in thier attempts, would that mean the TSA should be excused and not held liable because they don't screen flights from overseas?

Of course not!!!

The TSA might not have Screeners screening flights originating from overseas, but they DO put Air Marshals on those flights (refer back to the first Security Theater episode Bob listed---In Flight Security).

So, while Bob gloats over the 100% Screening, expecting people like you and I to believe it's a successful program that works (remember the smelly stowaway?), there are no Air Marshals on 100% of overseas flights. The citizens who stopped the underwear bomber, shoe bomber and others with thier bare hands have proven this weakness. Putting Air Marshals on 100% of flights was a subject the TSA has talked about fixing years ago, but for whatever reason has dropped for millions spent on things like strip search machines.

Going back to the smelly stowaway.....though it was a domestic flight, it was also a flight attendant who caught him. Not a TSA Screener, and there were no Air Marshals in flight for her to report it to. Those 21 layers of security means nothing if the wrong layer missing allows the right breach to get through.

The TSA is there to protect our homeland from it's enemies---FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC, and they have failed. But thanks to a professionalized group of patriotic American passengers, the threats were not successful.

"Actually, I never have to remove my shoes to enter the US, just to leave..."

Same here. Other nation's treat TSA's shoe hysteria with the contempt it deserves. Bob, why does TSA continue to make the US the only country in the world obsessed with shoes? It's not because shoes pose any danger, because they don't. So what's the story, Bob?

I have always been a goals oriented kind of person. Bob, how many credible terrorist attacks has TSA (or T&A as some put it) stopped. TSA has succesfully stomped all over the constitution with absolutely no successes. Or do you count violating the 4th amendment for 100% of travellers to be a good thing?

Wow, I am so surprised by how I keep seeing people say things like "only the TSA makes people take shoes off". Well lets at least get our facts right. Flying in Asia you will ermove your shoes Korea and JApan alike have this policy. I have no problem with people having an opinion but when they try to pass an opinion on as fact that is just wrong.

Some Anonymous poster said….I have always been a goals oriented kind of person. Bob, how many credible terrorist attacks has TSA (or T&A as some put it) stopped. TSA has succesfully stomped all over the constitution with absolutely no successes. Or do you count violating the 4th amendment for 100% of travellers to be a good thing?-----------------Well Anon, if TSA’s goal was to “stop” terrorist attacks then you might have a point. But it’s not, our goal is to ensure the safety of the flying public, a goal we achieve more than a million and a half times each and every day. And we do so within the laws of our nation and its constitution (your opinion on what is or is not constitutional notwithstanding).

So that naturally leads me to ask the question, “What have you done for your country today?” I know what I have done, and so does every passenger who came through my checkpoint.

Anon: "Wow, I am so surprised by how I keep seeing people say things like "only the TSA makes people take shoes off". Well lets at least get our facts right. Flying in Asia you will ermove your shoes Korea and JApan alike have this policy. I have no problem with people having an opinion but when they try to pass an opinion on as fact that is just wrong."

No, you won't.

I've flown out of ICN and NRT. At ICN, people didn't have to remove their shoes unless they were going on a US flagged or US bound flight.

I was on a United flight from ICN to NRT - not US bound but US flagged, and I got the shoe carnival. The person behind me didn't, and the person ahead of me didn't. I asked why, and they said it was because of US requirement.

I flew ANA out of NRT on my way back to the US. No shoe carnival at security, and none before I got on the plane.

In fact, in all my travels abroad, I only ever had to remove my shoes in the US, once in FRA in 2005, and at ICN.

Ronnie: "Well Anon, if TSA’s goal was to “stop” terrorist attacks then you might have a point. But it’s not, our goal is to ensure the safety of the flying public, a goal we achieve more than a million and a half times each and every day. And we do so within the laws of our nation and its constitution (your opinion on what is or is not constitutional notwithstanding)."

Your opinion not withstanding, either, Ronnie.

Not hard to do when the vast majority of people aren't a threat to aviation. Otherwise, TSA wouldn't be touting all the shampoo and birds they find as an attempt to justify its existence.

"So that naturally leads me to ask the question, “What have you done for your country today?” I know what I have done, and so does every passenger who came through my checkpoint."

Yep. You harassed them. Must make you proud - or at the very last, more American than a lot of people, right?

TSORon said..."Well Anon, if TSA’s goal was to “stop” terrorist attacks then you might have a point. But it’s not, our goal is to ensure the safety of the flying public, a goal we achieve more than a million and a half times each and every day."

Even if you were actually able to ensure safety while flying (you can't - you just improve it slightly), it doesn't follow that this improves the over-all safety of the American population.

Since terrorists have no requirement to attach airplanes, you aren't reducing the number of terrorist attacks. You are just moving them to another location. The chances of dying from a terrorist attach are exactly the same with or without the TSA.

Only action like the CIA does to find and stop terrorists before they attack improves safety.

There is really much about TSA that is good. All this self-promotion with pictures of confiscated animals and items without one terrorist among them isn't what most would call a good reason to keep an agency who's primary purpose is to take strip the flying public of their 4th amendment rights.Those who give up freedom for security will get neither.

[[Well Anon, if TSA’s goal was to “stop” terrorist attacks then you might have a point.]]

...you're kidding, right Ron?

[[But it’s not, our goal is to ensure the safety of the flying public, a goal we achieve more than a million and a half times each and every day.]]

Several logical/rhetorical problems with this assertion. I'll highlight a few for you.

First, 99.9999% of all airflights are rendered "safe" by doing nothing, so taking credit for "nothing" is pointless and delusional. They can also be said to be rendered "safe" by any number of other nonsequitous considerations, e.g., since I got involved with my wife.

Second, to the degree that your institutional mission is to keep passenger flights "safe", you do not screen the plane for mechanical problems, nor do you run breathalyzers on the pilots, nor do you wake up the air traffic controllers ... your job is SOLELY to detect those who are intent on air piracy or air sabotage. What is prosaically understood in this day and age to be "terrorism".

Try being honest, Ron. You'll get more respect and credibility.

[[And we do so within the laws of our nation and its constitution ]]

No, you do not. I cannot find any statement in the 4thAM that reads "...except for terrorism" or anything similar.

I am well aware that courts have found those words in other circumstances [though not in yours] but the fact that those words do not exist is all the proof anyone needs to conclude that the Constitution is not being followed; the courts are hallucinating on their own power.

[[(your opinion on what is or is not constitutional notwithstanding). ]]

Here's the thing with condescension, guy: you need to be correct first before it has any value. I can be condescending; you cannot. I am right; you are not.

When you are incorrect and attempt to condescend, you only come off as a jerk.

[[So that naturally leads me to ask the question, “What have you done for your country today?”]]

I've kept our wars supplied; our soldiers supplied; brought home several units rotating out; sent a few replacement units - sadly - rotating in. And I did it all without imperiously demanding that anyone remove their shoes, or making snotty and demeaning assumptions about them until they justify their existence to my satisfaction.

You?

[[I know what I have done, and so does every passenger who came through my checkpoint.]]

Yes: you imperiously demanded they take off their shoes and made snotty and demeaning assumptions about them until they justified their existence to your satisfaction. We know.

Well, Many of you seem enraged in the thought of being searched. Grow up, its for your own safety. I am a high school student doing research for a debate. And all of you just seem to be angry that your being searched. could it be a lack of confidence or time. Deal with it. And the next time your on a flight look around you. all those people were searched, not just you. You best choice is to just deal with it.

Wow, it is amazing how many of you are apparently experts on IEDs, explosives, screening procedures, and detection technologies. I am. It is not very amazing how many of you are wrong in your assessments. Why persist in criticizing things of which you have inadequate understanding?

Wow. Ten years! Now little old ladies get harassed by over-paid, under-skilled employees at the airport. Oh, and now they are stopping us on trains and cruise ships too. I'm so happy! And just THINK of all the TERRORISTS the TSA has caught! Like, the shoe bomber! Or the underwear bomber! Oh wait, they didn't catch either one... bring back private airport screening! To professionalize, you must privatize!

I accidentally left my personal grooming kit in my scanned bag, realized on the plane that I had 3 razors, 2 nail clippers (A big one and a little one) a nail file and a pocket knife... Just in my bag... That went through the scanners... That had dangerous stuff in it...